Oslo: In the upheaval of the crunch cash, the librarian in Oslo’s Nobel Institute for a while wearing gloves and tends to gardens after the landscape is dismissed.
The prestigious institution behind the Nobel Peace Prize has been devastated by increasing costs and cutting funding – made worse at the expense of running his broad and obsolete office.
With staff reduced from eight to five people since the 1990s, now turning to the Norwegian parliament for support – increasing concerns about the independence of the institution.
“Over the past 20 years, our income has been reduced while our costs continue to increase,” said the Nobel Director of the Institute Olav Njolstad told AFP.
“Without additional income, our cash flow will run out within two or three years,” he told AFP from his office, lined with historical books about Adolf Hitler and the Cold War.
Now, under pressure to sell his yellow historical building near the fertile royal palace park, which has held Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.
Given at the gold-plated ceremony attended by Norwegian royalties, the Nobel Peace Prize has been won by dozens of people and organizations since 1901, including Barack Obama, Malala Yousafzai and the World Food Program.
This will be given this year on October 8.
The Nobel Institution in Oslo handles administration to support the five committees who choose the winner of the peace prize – awards for science and literature handled by separate committees – and promote peace research.
Most of the institutional funds come from the 5.3 million annual grant of Sweden Crowns (523,000 euros, $ 605,000) by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm.
Swedish chemists and engineers died in 1896, inherited money to set prizes in Norway, along with awards for literature and science in Sweden.
But the funds were drastically cut in 2013 after the 2007-8 financial crisis, and have not yet risen since then.
What money does not happen so far, due to the impact of inflation and retirement costs balloons.
Njolstad is now interesting for parliament to step up to fill the budget gap yawning, but has caused serious concerns about the autonomy of the institution.
“It is possible that in the next few periods there will be some pressure from one political group or another,” said and Smith from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“When money is given then you can hope that there will be a bigger voice,” he told AFP.
In line with Alfred Nobel’s will, Parliament has appointed committee members.
Over the decades it has made a simple contribution to the Institute Library, but Njolstad has now requested an annual leaflet which is substantially greater than eight million Norwegian Kroner (789,000 euros, $ 913,000), which will be considered by the parliament in the coming months.
He stressed that grants would only be used to carry out costs and would not compromise the independence of the Committee.
“Other institutions in the community are financed – sometimes up to 100 percent – by the state but no one questiones their independence,” Njolstad said, using the examples of court and academic research.
The independence of politics is the value of the Nobel Committee’s Cardinal Committee: The minister has not been allowed to become a member since 1936, while MPS sat out of 1977.
But the choices sometimes stirred the problem for power in Oslo.
When the Committee presented China’s Dissem Liu Xiaobo Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, Beijing punished Norway by imposing a six-year freezing of bilateral and effective blocks on salmon imports.
Observers say that episodes may have encouraged the reluctance of parliament to fund the Nobel Institute.
“This problem raises several fundamental and practical questions, and deserves to get open political debate,” said Wilhelmsen Troen, head of the Norwegian parliament, told AFP.
Back at the Nobel Institute place in Oslo, librarians no longer tend to the reason after generous neighbors finally stepped up to cover gardening costs.
For some people, building sales offer a decent solution for the problem of money institutes.
Maintaining expensive property “not a satisfying way to manage” the money left by Alfred Nobel, said Vidar Helgesen, Director of the Nobel Foundation, the main supporters of the Institute.
But for Njolstad, selling the Institute’s house will be a “very bad idea”.
He doesn’t think it will reduce costs and besides, they have been there since 1905.
“All our history is connected to this building,” he added.